Method and System for Advertisement Detection and Substitution

Abstract

A television signal substitution system that replaces standard video segments with selected replacement portions. Video segments such as advertisements are detected using techniques such as fingerprinting or manual detection. The detected video segment is replaced with a selected replacement portion and output to an output device.

1 . A method of inserting advertisements based on the predicted duration of an ad break, the method comprising:
 (a) receiving a video stream comprising a plurality of video frames;   (b) identifying a channel identifier associated with the video stream;   (c) identifying fingerprints for the plurality of video frames in the received video stream;   (d) determining if a known advertisement is present in the received video stream by comparing at least one of the determined fingerprints with at least one of a plurality of stored fingerprints representing one or more advertisements;   (e) detecting an initiation of an ad break in the video stream based on the determination in step (d);   (f) predicting a duration for the ad break based at least in part on the channel identifier; and   (g) inserting one or more advertisements in at least a portion of the video stream corresponding to the predicted duration of the ad break.   
   
   
       2 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the inserting of step (g) includes removing at least one advertisement previously in the video stream. 
   
   
       3 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising:
 (h) calculating a number of advertisements that can be presented within the predicted duration; and   (i) inserting the calculated number of substitute advertisements in portion of the video stream corresponding to the predicted duration.   
   
   
       4 . The method of  claim 3 , wherein the inserting of step (i) includes removing at least one advertisement previously in the video stream. 
   
   
       5 . The method of  claim 3 , further comprising:
 (j) calculating the remaining time in the ad break after the calculated number of advertisements have been inserted; and   (k) inserting an advertisement with a duration less than the remaining time in the ad break into the video stream after the calculated number of advertisements have been inserted in step (i).   
   
   
       6 . The method of  claim 5 , wherein the advertisement with a duration less than the remaining time in the ad break is a series of still images. 
   
   
       7 . The method of  claim 3 , further comprising:
 (j) delaying the received video stream in an amount of time approximately equal to the time for processing steps (c) through (e); and   (k) returning to the received video stream once the number of advertisements calculated in step (h) have been inserted.   
   
   
       8 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the advertisements inserted in step (g) are selected based upon the fingerprints identified in step (c).